Celebrating International Women’s Day: Selected Biographies and Memoirs of Women
It is March 8 once again, and another International Women’s Day is upon us. Toronto Public Library offers customers the opportunity to borrow materials of interest on a wide variety of topics, including biographies and memoirs of different people. As the list of accomplished and interesting individuals is extensive, it is possible to offer only a selected list of titles at a given time. So here is a brief selection from Toronto Public Library collections:
The bald mermaid: a memoir / Sheila Bridges, 2013. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 747.092 BRI BRI
Read the story of African-American interior decorator Sheila Bridges who lost her hair to alopecia, an autoimmune disorder. Follow a variety of anecdotes in which various people thought that she was a patient. Past clients included former United States President Bill Clinton.
Read the review from the New York Times.
Country girl: a memoir / Edna O’Brien, 2013. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 823.914 OBR OBR
Learn how the pharmacist’s assistant whose paren'ts were not interested in literature became one of Ireland’s leading authors.
Read the review in the New York Times.
Epistolophilia: writing the life of Ona Šimaitė / Julija Šukys, 2012. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 940.5318 EPI SUK
Follow the story of this brave woman, a librarian who entered into the Jewish ghetto of Vilnius, Lithuania under Nazi occupation on the pretext of seeking out university books from Jewish students. In reality, Ona Šimaitė smuggled medicine, food, forged documentation, clothing, and correspondence into the ghetto for those imprisoned there, while taking out their letters into the outside world. Upon discovery of her activities in 1944, the Nazis tortured her brutally and then imprisoned Ona Šimaitė initially at Dachau concentration camp and then at a prison camp in occupied France. The author drew upon the liberal amount of correspondence written by Ona Šimaitė after the Second World War, on average 60 letters per month. Ona Šimaitė is honoured as one of the Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
Read the February 2012 review from Foreword Reviews.
Harriet Tubman: freedom seeker, freedom leader / Rosemary Sadlier, 2012. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 973.7115 TUB SAD
The author, president of the Ontario Black History Society, used existing documentation (including secret documents used by abolitionists and Underground Railroad participants) and quotations given by Harriet Tubman to journalists to offer the reader a chronologically-ordered biography. Rosemary Sadlier described the historical context faced by freed slaves in Ontario, including condescension shown by abolitionists towards the freed slaves and the continuation of segregation within St. Catharines, Ontario schools towards the end of the 19th century.
Read the review from CM Magazine (Canadian Review of Materials).
HRC: state secrets and the rebirth of Hillary Clinton / Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, 2014. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 327.73009 CLI ALL
Following a competitive race for the presidential nomination from the Democratic Party in the United States, Hilary Rodham Clinton agreed to a rapprochement with her successful rival, Barack Obama, by serving as Secretary of State in his first term of office. A biography of potential future President of the United States.
Also available in eAudiobook (Access Online) and eBook (Access Online) formats.
Read the review from the Washington Post.
I am Malala: the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban / Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb, 2013. 371.82209 YOU YOU
Read the story of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai who overcame an assassination attempt in Pakistan to continue her advocacy for the education of young women. Not only is she critical of the Taliban but also of the United States’ use of drone warfare and its past support of jihadi movements.
Also available in Audiobook CD, Large Print, and Talking Book (Restricted to Print Disabled patrons) formats.
Read the review in The Guardian. Read the review in the Toronto Star.
In my father's country: an Afghan woman defies her fate / Saima Wahab, 2012. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 958.1047 WAH WAH
KGB agents took the author’s father from her at five years of age during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Her grandfather allowed Saima Wahab to attend school, even though she was the only girl in her class. Saima and her siblings went to live with their academic uncle in the United States to gain an American education but had to endure traditional, sexist notions at home. Bravely, she sought her own path and was hired by the American military as a bilingual English-Pashto speaker in 2004 to assist with co-ordination in Afghanistan.
Also available in eBook (Access Online) format. Read the review from Kirkus Review.
Mrs. Robinson's disgrace: the private diary of a Victorian lady / Kate Summerscale, 2012. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 941.34081ROB SUM
Isabella Robinson outlined her feelings for a married doctor named Edward Lane in her diary, leading her husband Henry Robinson to be one of the first individuals to sue for divorce in Victorian Britain under the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act. The author made use of correspondence and of legal documents referring to the diary which is presumed to have been destroyed.
Read the review in The Guardian.
My beloved world / Sonia Sotomayor, 2013. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 347.73263 SOT SOT
The American Supreme Court Justice outlined her childhood challenges with diabetes and the conflict between her alcoholic father and her nurse mother. Sotomayor’s father died when she was 9 years old and she urged her mother to come back from her grief. Sonia Sotomayor learned to be self-sufficient, immersing herself in the world of the local public library. She attended Princeton University and Yale Law School. Her autobiography covered up to the point when Sotomayor became a district court judge in New York, prior to becoming a member of the Supreme Court.
Also available in Audiobook CD, Large Print, eAudiobook (Access Online), eBook (Access Online), and Talking Book (Restricted to Print Disabled Patrons) formats.
Read the review from the New York Times. Read the review from npr.org/books (National Public Radio: Books).
My journey / Olivia Chow, 2014. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 971.07309 CHO CHO
Olivia Chow outlined her journey as a 13-year old teenager from Hong Kong to Canada where her abusive father sought to escape from the potential threats of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. Despite experiencing an unhappy relationship herself during her teenage years, Chow embraced education at the University of Toronto, found love and fulfillment with the late Jack Layton, and set upon a political career in Toronto as a school trustee, city councillor, and ultimately as an NDP Member of Parliament. Whether Olivia Chow will run for the mayoralty of Toronto is yet to be determined.
Also available in eBook (Access Online) format.
Read the review in the Globe and Mail. Read the review in the Toronto Star.
Penelope Fitzgerald: a life / Hermione Lee, 2013. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 823.914 FIT LEE
Read the story of the English novelist Penelope (néeKnox) Fitzgerald, a Booker Prize winner for her novel Offshore (1979), who wrote short, sparing novels offering much in obliqueness, self-concealment, and subtlety. Learn that her novels were written very much in character and that Penelope Fitzgerald did not always display her inner thoughts. Read about her life with her alcoholic husband Desmond, a Military Cross winner, who as a barrister stole money from chambers, only to be disbarred.
Read the reviews from The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph.
The tale of the two Nazanins / Nazanin Afshin-Jam and Susan McClelland, 2012. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 323.092 NAZ NAZ
Iranian-Canadian Nazanin Afshin-Jam, wife of Conservative cabinet minister Peter MacKay, organized a 350,000 signature petition campaign delivered to the United Nations, urging the release of Nazanin Fatehi, a jailed Kurdish-Iranian sentenced to death who was subjected to rape and abuse from male family members and other men, one of whom was killed by Fatehi in self-defence. Nazanin Fatehi was released from prison in January 2007.
Read the review from the National Post.
Unsinkable: a memoir / Silken Laumann with Sylvia Fraser, 2014. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 797.12309 LAU LAU
Many Canadians are well-acquainted with the courage and determination of athlete and sculls rower Silken Laumann’s bronze medal performance at the 1992 Summer Olympics in the aftermath of a serious leg injury caused by a collision with another boat. What is less known is the abuse that Laumann was ostensibly subjected to while growing up as a child at home, leading to bouts of anorexia and cutting as well as feeling inadequate.
Also available in eBook (Access Online) format.
Read the reviews from the Brampton Guardian and the Calgary Herald. Read this article from the Toronto Star in which family members dispute some of the accounts given in the memoir.
Unworthy creature: a Punjabi daughter's memoir of honour, shame and love / Aruna Papp with Barbara Kay, 2012. Book. Adult Non-Fiction. 362.8292 PAP PAP
Aruna Papp had to contend with emotional, physical, and social abuse from her paren'ts, family members and friends as she grew up in East Punjab as a female, Christian girl with dark skin pigmentation. Coming to Canada aided Aruna Papp in determining her self-worth, completing two graduate degrees, and finding love.
Read the book feature article on everythingzoomer.com . Read Dr. Farzana Hassan’s review on artsandopinion.com as well as her column in the Toronto Sun.
Listen to the May 24, 2012 interview with Aruna Papp on CBC Radio’s The Current hosted by Anna Maria Tremonti:
Please visit the following International Women’s Day blog posts written by other Toronto Public Library staff members:
Inspirational Lives: 5 Biographies for International Women's Day (The Buzz…About Books)
International Women’s Day (Barbara Frum District Blog)
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